Archive for the ‘Combat’ Category

I’m out scanning down people as I usually do when I find an Apocalypse doing an Angel Extravaganza Level 4 with his best buddy in a salvaging Harbinger by his side. I start grabbing stuff, as I tend to do. Nothing really happens until another pilot in a Punisher warps in and loots a wreck. Then all hell breaks loose.

The Apocalypse pilot starts to shoot the Punisher, which returns fire but is unable to break the Apoc’s huge mission-based tank. I strike up a conversation with the Punisher pilot (Saria Dehmov), who informs me that she has corpmates on the way with a gank Brutix. “They should be here in about 20 minutes.” she states.

20 minutes later there’s no sign of her corpmates, nor of the Apocalypse’s tank breaking, so we start debating alternate ways to blow it up. Most of them involve flying another ship in and switching ships quickly to proceed with a gank, especially since the Apoc pilot doesn’t seem to want to engage.

I offer my Armageddon, but the 200 mil collateral is a bit rich, so we think of other ways to do it. There’s no way I’m letting it out of the hangar without it though, so we start to think of different ships that could get the job done. Since I have a spare Arbitrator a few jumps away and a Guardian in this system, I decide to fit it out in a great team-gank fit.

At this point, it’s been approximately one hour, 45 minutes since we started this fight. I warp into the mission in the sleek Arbitrator, rocking through the gates as fast as I can, and zip in to sit right up next to the Punisher. Quickly ejecting, I let Saria take control of the Arbitrator, cautioning her to keep the neuts off until I’d gotten back in with my Guardian, then warp out. She locks down the Apocalypse and engages the tracking disruptor, keeping him from hitting her very much at all while she waits.

A minute or so later, I’m screaming through the gates in my Guardian, Penirgman’s sun flashing off the red and gold of the hull. Setting up to orbit the Apocalypse at 65km, I engage the afterburner, then target the Arbitrator and toggle on 1 remote armor repairer and the remote capacitor booster. Saria flicks on the Arbitrator’s 4 small neutralizers, starting the work of draining the Apocalypse’s huge capacitor reservoir. Suddenly, my Guardian is under fire by the Apocalypse, but the lasers wildly flicker all about the hull without damaging it, the range too great for even Radio crystals and the Apocalypse’s own range bonus.

Soon enough, the huge guns fall silent, repair ceases, and the Hammerhead IIs tear through the Apocalypse’s armor – it’s no match for them with all the capacitor gone.

This isn’t a very clever story, but it illustrates quite well what happens if you shoot at a ninja salvager.

There’s a repeat “customer” of my services that I see a lot – a bloke going by the name of “edeity”. I’ve salvaged his missions twice now, and as I undock in my Executioner, I see him undock. He’s one of those guys that shoots at ninjas, then runs before they come back. Curious, I watch where he warps off too as I wait the 30 seconds to redock for my Anathema.

A quick set of scans later and I’ve got him narrowed down to a point a bit below the ecliptic. Re-docking, I swap to the Executioner and roar off to his mission. It appears to be a Mining Misappropriation, Level 4. I start salvaging and he locks me up. Good so far. Sliding past one of the Battleship wrecks, I grab a Tachyon Beam Laser I – that’ll fetch nearly a million ISK, no matter what else I get.

Yes! He opens fire as I align to the station. Warping out, I dock as fast as I can, screaming for Scotty to get his butt in gear and get my Armageddon ready for battle. 30 excruciatingly slow seconds later, I’m undocking, then aligning out. A few moments later, I’m pulling into the mission with a blinking red Apocalypse 3000 meters off to the left. Starting target lock, I enable all the requisite awesome modules – warp scrambler, webber, nosferatu, guns. Additional firepower comes in the form of 5 Berserker IIs that flash out of my dronebay and hover menacingly for a bare half-second before the target lock resolves and they scream after the awesome pulses of power from my lasers.

The actual fight is hardly worth mentioning – He doesn’t even get me through shields before he’s into structure, popping as he does the first flash of damage to my hull. The best damage of all was his hit to my shields:

Thanks to the 4 day weekend in the US, I’ve got plenty of time to cause trouble this time around. So it was that I scanned down an Abaddon in Orkashu. He’s doing “The Damsel in Distress” level 4, and had just finished it. I start salvaging and take a few choice bits just to see if he’ll shoot. He warps out. I put on my sad face, but continue working over the loot. Not much of note, lots of Metal Scraps, which fills up my cargo hold a little too fast for my liking.

After the 3rd Large wreck, the Abaddon warps back in, this time on the mission objective can, then locks me up and drops drones. I move closer, just to see if he’ll take the bait. He does. IT’S ARMAGEDDON TIME. I bookmark a wreck next to him and warp out.

I quick-like jumpback to Penirgman, roaring over to the station there and dropping my pod into my Armageddon. A quick check of the laser systems, a swap out of the Berserkers for Ogres (this was a mission with lots of Explosive damage from the Macharial-flying NPCs) and I’m out again, cursing the slow align speed of my Armageddon.

Getting back into Orkashu, I warp in, enabling hardeners and DCU as I go. This should be a fun fight – an unprepared Abaddon versus my finely honed Armageddon. Arriving at the mission, I find him 25km off of my bookmark, motoring toward another wreck at a stately 102 m/s. This just won’t do. Overloading my Warp Disruptor II, I slap it on him as my lock resolves, ensuring he can’t go far. At 114 m/s, I’m barely faster than him, but I start to close the range. My lasers are happy at this range, too – 24km is right inside my Scorch optimal, purple lines lancing out to spear shields, then armor away from the floundering Abaddon. I’m actually quite surprised at how well a Battleship overloads – I get a full 5 cycles out of my warp disruptor before any heat damage registers.

Getting inside 23km, I bring my warp disruptor back to normal power, but as I’ve chewed through most of his armor, I send him a conversation request. I want to see if I can ransom him.

I zip back to the station with my goods, then go put up a Contract with the Damsel. It’s always good practice to do this, because if you don’t, the GMs may give them the mission items anyway, because just taking the items without offering them back is “grief play.” I mail him a copy of the contract just for giggles.

He accepts it. So, just to recap: that’s 70m for the ransom, 20m for the contract, then at least 50m from the loot… happy day!

Now, the tears start.

2009.11.26 18:15
i give you all my isk why you destroy my ship ?

Reply: You just got ninja’d, son!

2009.11.26 18:24
i;am reaktivate my charakter today, and now i can not fly any missions , sry but this is very bad 4me, and for you this isk is not to much, when
you have a little bit heart y will give me minimum this isk back

03:34:41 Notify Faint Warp Disruptor I deactivates because its target, Centii Loyal Savage Wreck, is not locked.
03:34:44 Notify Warping to Penirgman IX – Moon 3 – Ministry of Internal Order Assembly Plant prior to making docking attempt
03:35:22 Info You are a criminal and this station will not allow you to dock. The criminal timer will run out in 14 minutes and 18 seconds.

This was when I panicked and warped because I saw the red GCC timer appear. I was in a Vengeance (Amarr Assault Frigate) at the time.

Yes, you low sec hands will tell me warping to a station is not a good idea, but I’m a high sec bunny, so I don’t have the same reflexes when I see red in the upper-left corner.

Hmm, scary…

BUT WHO WAS CONCORD?!

I accidentally CONCORD, I guess. Oh well. The GM response was to file a bug report, so apparently I didn’t evade CONCORD, which is a banning offense.

I don’t want to post every kill I get on here, but this one definitely counts as special. First time I’ve gotten a faction loot drop!

I warp into the mission, chasing a Raven, and find an Enemies Abound (3 of 5) mission in progress. I burn toward a wreck and start to salvage, but the Raven pilot starts shooting at the wrecks. I loot the Port Rolette can there, snagging 10 Port Rolette Residents, which are the mission objective. I warp out as I’m taking damage, having aggroed a bunch of frigates and BSes. I drop off the objective at my station – I really don’t want to pop and have him take the goodies back. Going back in, I find him fighting other ships and start salvaging. This time he locks me. Will he shoot? Really? Pwomise? I take a tag. He does! I warp out as fast as I can to get my Armageddon, cackling with glee all the way. As I undock, he appears in the local area, warping in to dock. Grrrrr.

I warp out to the mission again and kill a couple of cruisers to provide a wreck, then wait till the 15 minutes is gone and warp scramble the wreck, resetting the aggro timer. Very nice, the wreck has a railgun worth 2M ISK in it. I wait a bit longer. He’s still staying docked, so I chance it and warp back to the station, docking up and dropping my loot off. I undock again and start to warp to the mission, just as he emerges. So close, but I’m already in warp. Hope he didn’t see me. I scan back at the station as I warp, landing on the mission gate and waiting. He’s still on scan. Please, please… 30 seconds later, there he is! Gotcha, after 28 minutes of hide and seek.

Scram on, web on, hardeners and DC II on. Launch Ogre IIs. Amarr Navy Multifrequency, loaded and checked. He was tanked for kinetic and thermal damage (Gallente NPCs) at last count, so this should be short, fast, and brutal. Lock resolved, opening fire.

Oh, ok that’s better. I’m in armor now. My armor repair modules can keep this up all day, at this rate of fire.

[ 2009.11.07 03:38:06 ] (notify) Outtofoul1 has initiated self-destruct of their Raven, it will explode in 120 seconds.

Naughty boy. I overload my guns, but it’s not needed. He pops a few seconds later, taking 4 volleys each to chew through armor and hull, now that the shields are gone.

2009.11.07 03:38:31 is the official time of kill. I guide the massive golden shape of the Litany of Fury toward the wreck as the pod warps off. As I get in range, I dump cap boosters into my own can, simultaneously opening the wreck. 3x Caldari Navy Cruise Missile Launcher Is (40M each in Jita, 49M in Amarr), plus a mess of other Tech 2 loot. Scoop drones that he left, scoop the loot, and I’m out of there, cackling all the way to the station.

Finally, just for that last sweet little touch, I warp the Executioner out to what I think is the gate to salvage the wreck. It’s not the gate. It’s actually the mission room, and there’s nothing left but the 2 wrecks I popped. He had to cancel the mission and suck up the standings loss as well as the Raven loss.

I’ve been trying to think of a good inaugural post for this blog, and I think I’ve hit on it. A shiny, fresh kill!

I was out ninja salvaging, as I tend to do in the evenings, thanks to Paul Clavet’s excellent inspiration. I find that it’s an excellent way to make cash with a minimum of time investment, which is extremely rare in EVE. Most things take at least an hour, but I can find a good salvage site and strip it in 15-30 minutes.

Some disappointing Guristas salvage later, I scan down an Apocalypse battleship and warp in. Score! Angel Extravaganza! Delicious Alloyed Tritanium Bars here I come! I’m happily salvaging along and checking the cans, deciding whether to take some loot or not. I don’t want to be shot at too much, but if anything good comes along, I’ll take it. I find a module worth a couple million, so decide to take the plunge and snag it. As I’m in the 3rd room already, so after I take the loot, I warp back to the station and dock. Better to be safe than sorry. I’m happy I did, because after I warp into the 4th room, the Apocalypse immediately targets me and opens fire! Unfortunately, I’m not moving very fast because I’m salvaging, plus Warrior IIs do a number on an untanked Executioner, so I pop before I can get out. Alas, the Biting Pear is destroyed, with the loss of 4 precious bars of Alloyed Tritanium. Time to go get my Armageddon.

At this point, RL intrudes, and dinner is served, with 13 minutes on my aggression timer. Nooo, my prey will slip through my grasp! Some clever IRL maneuvering later, I manage to undock at 3 minutes left, warp to the mission, and shoot a can. Success! 15 more minutes to go!

A few minutes later, I’m rocking through the gates, scanning every time I hit the next room to make sure the Apocalypse is still there. It appears to be in the last room, shooting the boss. I land 6km away from it and immediately slam on the warp disruptor and web, helped by the Spider Drones that the mission provides. That battleship isn’t going anywhere. It also isn’t lasting long either, as it’s tanked for explosive/kinetic. Dual heavy pulse lasers punch through golden armor like it was cardboard, a single feeble repair cycle spikes the armor back up 1/8th, but it’s gone in another volley. Ogre IIs swarm over the helpless battleship, blasters chewing the hull open. A moment later, it explodes in a shower of light, sparks, and loot. Success! Ending total: My loss: 1,686,798 ISK.Their loss: 283,108,286 ISK. Sounds like a good trade to me!